DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGESAmadio, Inc., the owner of THEeMystery trademark, disclaims allliability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees.BY READING ONLINE OR DOWNLOADING THIS EBOOK YOUAGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCEAND LIABILITY. YOU AGREE THAT AMADIO, INC., THETRADEMARK OWNER, WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FORACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE,INCIDENTAL AND ANY AND ALL OTHER DAMAGES EVEN IFYOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.A DOUBLE BARRELED DETECTIVE By Mark Twain PART I "We ought never to do wrong when people are looking."

IThe first scene is in the country, in Virginia; the time, 1880. There hasbeen a wedding, between a handsome young man of slender means anda rich young girl—a case of love at first sight and a precipitatemarriage; a marriage bitterly opposed by the girl's widowed father. Jacob Fuller, the bridegroom, is twenty-six years old, is of an old butunconsidered family which had by compulsion emigrated fromSedgemoor, and for King James's purse's profit, so everybody said—some maliciously the rest merely because they believed it. The bride isnineteen and beautiful. She is intense, high-strung, romantic,immeasurably proud of her Cavalier blood, and passionate in her lovefor her young husband. For its sake she braved her father's displeasure,endured his reproaches, listened with loyalty unshaken to his warningpredictions and went from his house without his blessing, proud andhappy in the proofs she was thus giving of the quality of the affectionwhich had made its home in her heart. The morning after the marriage there was a sad surprise for her. Herhusband put aside her proffered caresses, and said: "Sit down. I have something to say to you. I loved you. That wasbefore I asked your father to give you to me. His refusal is not mygrievance—I could have endured that. But the things he said of me to

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you—that is a different matter. There—you needn't speak; I know quitewell what they were; I got them from authentic sources. Among otherthings he said that my character was written in my face; that I wastreacherous, a dissembler, a coward, and a brute without sense of pityor compassion: the 'Sedgemoor trade-mark,' he called it—and 'white-sleeve badge.' Any other man in my place would have gone to hishouse and shot him down like a dog. I wanted to do it, and was mindedto do it, but a better thought came to me: to put him to shame; to breakhis heart; to kill him by inches. How to do it? Through my treatment ofyou, his idol! I would marry you; and then—Have patience. You willsee." From that moment onward, for three months, the young wifesuffered all the humiliations, all the insults, all the miseries that thediligent and inventive mind of the husband could contrive, savephysical injuries only. Her strong pride stood by her, and she kept thesecret of her troubles. Now and then the husband said, "Why don't yougo to your father and tell him?" Then he invented new tortures, appliedthem, and asked again. She always answered, "He shall never know bymy mouth," and taunted him with his origin; said she was the lawfulslave of a scion of slaves, and must obey, and would—up to that point,but no further; he could kill her if he liked, but he could not break her;it was not in the Sedgemoor breed to do it. At the end of the threemonths he said, with a dark significance in his manner, "I have tried allthings but one"—and waited for her reply. "Try that," she said, andcurled her lip in mockery. That night he rose at midnight and put on his clothes, then said toher: "Get up and dress!" She obeyed—as always, without a word. He led her half a mile fromthe house, and proceeded to lash her to a tree by the side of the publicroad; and succeeded, she screaming and struggling. He gagged herthen, struck her across the face with his cowhide, and set hisbloodhounds on her. They tore the clothes off her, and she was naked.He called the dogs off, and said:

Mark Twain | 2 "You will be found—by the passing public. They will be droppingalong about three hours from now, and will spread the news—do youhear? Good-by. You have seen the last of me." He went away then. She moaned to herself: "I shall bear a child—to him! God grant it may be a boy!" The farmers released her by and by—and spread the news, whichwas natural. They raised the country with lynching intentions, but thebird had flown. The young wife shut herself up in her father's house; heshut himself up with her, and thenceforth would see no one. His pridewas broken, and his heart; so he wasted away, day by day, and even hisdaughter rejoiced when death relieved him. Then she sold the estate and disappeared.

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IIIn 1886 a young woman was living in a modest house near a secludedNew England village, with no company but a little boy about five yearsold. She did her own work, she discouraged acquaintanceships, and hadnone. The butcher, the baker, and the others that served her could tellthe villagers nothing about her further than that her name was Stillman,and that she called the child Archy. Whence she came they had notbeen able to find out, but they said she talked like a Southerner. Thechild had no playmates and no comrade, and no teacher but the mother.She taught him diligently and intelligently, and was satisfied with theresults—even a little proud of them. One day Archy said: "Mamma, am I different from other children?" "Well, I suppose not. Why?" "There was a child going along out there and asked me if thepostman had been by and I said yes, and she said how long since I sawhim and I said I hadn't seen him at all, and she said how did I know he'dbeen by, then, and I said because I smelt his track on the sidewalk, andshe said I was a dum fool and made a mouth at me. What did she dothat for?" The young woman turned white, and said to herself, "It's a birthmark! The gift of the bloodhound is in him." She snatched the boy toher breast and hugged him passionately, saying, "God has appointed theway!" Her eyes were burning with a fierce light, and her breath cameshort and quick with excitement. She said to herself: "The puzzle issolved now; many a time it has been a mystery to me, the impossiblethings the child has done in the dark, but it is all clear to me now." She set him in his small chair, and said: "Wait a little till I come, dear; then we will talk about the matter." She went up to her room and took from her dressing-table severalsmall articles and put them out of sight: a nail-file on the floor under

Mark Twain | 4the bed; a pair of nail-scissors under the bureau; a small ivory paper-knife under the wardrobe. Then she returned, and said: "There! I have left some things which I ought to have broughtdown." She named them, and said, "Run up and bring them, dear." The child hurried away on his errand and was soon back again withthe things. "Did you have any difficulty, dear?" "No, mamma; I only went where you went." During his absence she had stepped to the bookcase, taken severalbooks from the bottom shelf, opened each, passed her hand over a page,noting its number in her memory, then restored them to their places.Now she said: "I have been doing something while you have been gone, Archy. Doyou think you can find out what it was?" The boy went to the bookcase and got out the books that had beentouched, and opened them at the pages which had been stroked. The mother took him in her lap, and said: "I will answer your question now, dear. I have found out that in oneway you are quite different from other people. You can see in the dark,you can smell what other people cannot, you have the talents of abloodhound. They are good and valuable things to have, but you mustkeep the matter a secret. If people found it out, they would speak of youas an odd child, a strange child, and children would be disagreeable toyou, and give you nicknames. In this world one must be like everybodyelse if he doesn't want to provoke scorn or envy or jealousy. It is a greatand fine distinction which has been born to you, and I am glad; but youwill keep it a secret, for mamma's sake, won't you?" The child promised, without understanding. All the rest of the day the mother's brain was busy with excitedthinkings; with plans, projects, schemes, each and all of them uncanny,grim, and dark. Yet they lit up her face; lit it with a fell light of theirown; lit it with vague fires of hell. She was in a fever of unrest; shecould not sit, stand, read, sew; there was no relief for her but inmovement. She tested her boy's gift in twenty ways, and kept saying toherself all the time, with her mind in the past: "He broke my father's

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heart, and night and day all these years I have tried, and all in vain, tothink out a way to break his. I have found it now—I have found itnow." When night fell, the demon of unrest still possessed her. She went onwith her tests; with a candle she traversed the house from garret tocellar, hiding pins, needles, thimbles, spools, under pillows, undercarpets, in cracks in the walls, under the coal in the bin; then sent thelittle fellow in the dark to find them; which he did, and was happy andproud when she praised him and smothered him with caresses. From this time forward life took on a new complexion for her. Shesaid, "The future is secure—I can wait, and enjoy the waiting." Themost of her lost interests revived. She took up music again, andlanguages, drawing, painting, and the other long-discarded delights ofher maidenhood. She was happy once more, and felt again the zest oflife. As the years drifted by she watched the development of her boy,and was contented with it. Not altogether, but nearly that. The soft sideof his heart was larger than the other side of it. It was his only defect, inher eyes. But she considered that his love for her and worship of hermade up for it. He was a good hater—that was well; but it was aquestion if the materials of his hatreds were of as tough and enduring aquality as those of his friendships—and that was not so well. The years drifted on. Archy was become a handsome, shapely,athletic youth, courteous, dignified, companionable, pleasant in hisways, and looking perhaps a trifle older than he was, which wassixteen. One evening his mother said she had something of graveimportance to say to him, adding that he was old enough to hear it now,and old enough and possessed of character enough and stability enoughto carry out a stern plan which she had been for years contriving andmaturing. Then she told him her bitter story, in all its nakedatrociousness. For a while the boy was paralyzed; then he said: "I understand. We are Southerners; and by our custom and naturethere is but one atonement. I will search him out and kill him." "Kill him? No! Death is release, emancipation; death is a favor. Do Iowe him favors? You must not hurt a hair of his head." The boy was lost in thought awhile; then he said:

Mark Twain | 6 "You are all the world to me, and your desire is my law and mypleasure. Tell me what to do and I will do it." The mother's eyes beamed with satisfaction, and she said: "You will go and find him. I have known his hiding-place for elevenyears; it cost me five years and more of inquiry, and much money, tolocate it. He is a quartz-miner in Colorado, and well-to-do. He lives inDenver. His name is Jacob Fuller. There—it is the first time I havespoken it since that unforgettable night. Think! That name could havebeen yours if I had not saved you that shame and furnished you acleaner one. You will drive him from that place; you will hunt himdown and drive him again; and yet again, and again, and again,persistently, relentlessly, poisoning his life, filling it with mysteriousterrors, loading it with weariness and misery, making him wish fordeath, and that he had a suicide's courage; you will make of himanother Wandering Jew; he shall know no rest any more, no peace ofmind, no placid sleep; you shall shadow him, cling to him, persecutehim, till you break his heart, as he broke my father's and mine." "I will obey, mother." "I believe it, my child. The preparations are all made; everything isready. Here is a letter of credit; spend freely, there is no lack of money.At times you may need disguises. I have provided them; also someother conveniences." She took from the drawer of the typewriter-tableseveral squares of paper. They all bore these typewritten words: $10,000 REWARD It is believed that a certain man who is wanted in an Eastern state issojourning here. In 1880, in the night, he tied his young wife to a treeby the public road, cut her across the face with a cowhide, and made hisdogs tear her clothes from her, leaving her naked. He left her there, andfled the country. A blood-relative of hers has searched for him forseventeen years. Address... ......,.........., Post-office. The above rewardwill be paid in cash to the person who will furnish the seeker, in apersonal interview, the criminal's address. "When you have found him and acquainted yourself with his scent,you will go in the night and placard one of these upon the building heoccupies, and another one upon the post-office or in some other

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prominent place. It will be the talk of the region. At first you must givehim several days in which to force a sale of his belongings at somethingapproaching their value. We will ruin him by and by, but gradually; wemust not impoverish him at once, for that could bring him to despairand injure his health, possibly kill him." She took three or four more typewritten forms from the drawer—duplicates—and read one:

..........,.........., 18... To Jacob Fuller:

You have...... days in which to settle your affairs. You will not bedisturbed during that limit, which will expire at. ..... M., on the......of....... You must then MOVE ON. If you are still in the place after thenamed hour, I will placard you on all the dead walls, detailing yourcrime once more, and adding the date, also the scene of it, with allnames concerned, including your own. Have no fear of bodily injury—it will in no circumstances ever be inflicted upon you. You broughtmisery upon an old man, and ruined his life and broke his heart. Whathe suffered, you are to suffer. "You will add no signature. He must receive this before he learns ofthe reward placard—before he rises in the morning—lest he lose hishead and fly the place penniless." "I shall not forget." "You will need to use these forms only in the beginning—once maybe enough. Afterward, when you are ready for him to vanish out of aplace, see that he gets a copy of this form, which merely says:

"MOVE ON. You have...... days."

"He will obey. That is sure."

Mark Twain | 8IIIExtracts from letters to the mother:DENVER, April 3, 1897 I have now been living several days in thesame hotel with Jacob Fuller. I have his scent; I could track himthrough ten divisions of infantry and find him. I have often been nearhim and heard him talk. He owns a good mine, and has a fair incomefrom it; but he is not rich. He learned mining in a good way—byworking at it for wages. He is a cheerful creature, and his forty-threeyears sit lightly upon him; he could pass for a younger man—saythirty-six or thirty-seven. He has never married again—passes himselfoff for a widower. He stands well, is liked, is popular, and has manyfriends. Even I feel a drawing toward him—the paternal blood in memaking its claim. How blind and unreasoning and arbitrary are some ofthe laws of nature—the most of them, in fact! My task is become hardnow—you realize it? you comprehend, and make allowances?—and thefire of it has cooled, more than I like to confess to myself, But I willcarry it out. Even with the pleasure paled, the duty remains, and I willnot spare him. And for my help, a sharp resentment rises in me when I reflect thathe who committed that odious crime is the only one who has notsuffered by it. The lesson of it has manifestly reformed his character,and in the change he is happy. He, the guilty party, is absolved from allsuffering; you, the innocent, are borne down with it. But becomforted—he shall harvest his share. SILVER GULCH, May 19 I placarded Form No. 1 at midnight ofApril 3; an hour later I slipped Form No. 2 under his chamber door,notifying him to leave Denver at or before 11.50 the night of the 14th. Some late bird of a reporter stole one of my placards, then hunted thetown over and found the other one, and stole that. In this manner heaccomplished what the profession call a "scoop"—that is, he got a

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valuable item, and saw to it that no other paper got it. And so hispaper—the principal one in the town—had it in glaring type on theeditorial page in the morning, followed by a Vesuvian opinion of ourwretch a column long, which wound up by adding a thousand dollars toour reward on the paper's account! The journals out here know how todo the noble thing—when there's business in it. At breakfast I occupied my usual seat—selected because it affordeda view of papa Fuller's face, and was near enough for me to hear thetalk that went on at his table. Seventy-five or a hundred people were inthe room, and all discussing that item, and saying they hoped the seekerwould find that rascal and remove the pollution of his presence fromthe town—with a rail, or a bullet, or something. When Fuller came in he had the Notice to Leave—folded up—in onehand, and the newspaper in the other; and it gave me more than half apang to see him. His cheerfulness was all gone, and he looked old andpinched and ashy. And then—only think of the things he had to listento! Mamma, he heard his own unsuspecting friends describe him withepithets and characterizations drawn from the very dictionaries andphrase-books of Satan's own authorized editions down below. Andmore than that, he had to agree with the verdicts and applaud them. Hisapplause tasted bitter in his mouth, though; he could not disguise thatfrom me; and it was observable that his appetite was gone; he onlynibbled; he couldn't eat. Finally a man said: "It is quite likely that that relative is in the room and hearing whatthis town thinks of that unspeakable scoundrel. I hope so." Ah, dear, it was pitiful the way Fuller winced, and glanced aroundscared! He couldn't endure any more, and got up and left. During several days he gave out that he had bought a mine inMexico, and wanted to sell out and go down there as soon as he could,and give the property his personal attention. He played his cards well;said he would take $40,000—a quarter in cash, the rest in safe notes;but that as he greatly needed money on account of his new purchase, hewould diminish his terms for cash in full, He sold out for $30,000. Andthen, what do you think he did? He asked for greenbacks, and tookthem, saying the man in Mexico was a New-Englander, with a head full

Mark Twain | 10of crotchets, and preferred greenbacks to gold or drafts. People thoughtit queer, since a draft on New York could produce greenbacks quiteconveniently. There was talk of this odd thing, but only for a day; thatis as long as any topic lasts in Denver. I was watching, all the time. As soon as the sale was completed andthe money paid—which was on the 11th—I began to stick to Fuller'strack without dropping it for a moment. That night—no, 12th, for itwas a little past midnight—I tracked him to his room, which was fourdoors from mine in the same hall; then I went back and put on mymuddy day-laborer disguise, darkened my complexion, and sat down inmy room in the gloom, with a gripsack handy, with a change in it, andmy door ajar. For I suspected that the bird would take wing now. Inhalf an hour an old woman passed by, carrying a grip: I caught thefamiliar whiff, and followed with my grip, for it was Fuller. He left thehotel by a side entrance, and at the corner he turned up an unfrequentedstreet and walked three blocks in a light rain and a heavy darkness, andgot into a two-horse hack, which of course was waiting for him byappointment. I took a seat (uninvited) on the trunk platform behind, andwe drove briskly off. We drove ten miles, and the hack stopped at away-station and was discharged. Fuller got out and took a seat on abarrow under the awning, as far as he could get from the light; I wentinside, and watched the ticket-office. Fuller bought no ticket; I boughtnone. Presently the train came along, and he boarded a car; I enteredthe same car at the other end, and came down the aisle and took the seatbehind him. When he paid the conductor and named his objective point,I dropped back several seats, while the conductor was changing a bill,and when he came to me I paid to the same place—about a hundredmiles westward. From that time for a week on end he led me a dance. He traveledhere and there and yonder—always on a general westward trend—buthe was not a woman after the first day. He was a laborer, like myself,and wore bushy false whiskers. His outfit was perfect, and he could dothe character without thinking about it, for he had served the trade forwages. His nearest friend could not have recognized him. At last helocated himself here, the obscurest little mountain camp in Montana; he

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has a shanty, and goes out prospecting daily; is gone all day, and avoidssociety. I am living at a miner's boardinghouse, and it is an awful place:the bunks, the food, the dirt—everything. We have been here four weeks, and in that time I have seen him butonce; but every night I go over his track and post myself. As soon as heengaged a shanty here I went to a town fifty miles away andtelegraphed that Denver hotel to keep my baggage till I should send forit. I need nothing here but a change of army shirts, and I brought thatwith me. SILVER GULCH, June 12 The Denver episode has never found itsway here, I think. I know the most of the men in camp, and they havenever referred to it, at least in my hearing. Fuller doubtless feels quitesafe in these conditions. He has located a claim, two miles away, in anout-of-the-way place in the mountains; it promises very well, and he isworking it diligently. Ah, but the change in him! He never smiles, andhe keeps quite to himself, consorting with no one—he who was so fondof company and so cheery only two months ago. I have seen himpassing along several times recently—drooping, forlorn, the springgone from his step, a pathetic figure. He calls himself David Wilson. I can trust him to remain here until we disturb him. Since you insist,I will banish him again, but I do not see how he can be unhappier thanhe already is. I will go hack to Denver and treat myself to a little seasonof comfort, and edible food, and endurable beds, and bodily decency;then I will fetch my things, and notify poor papa Wilson to move on. DENVER, June 19 They miss him here. They all hope he isprospering in Mexico, and they do not say it just with their mouths, butout of their hearts. You know you can always tell. I am loitering hereoverlong, I confess it. But if you were in my place you would havecharity for me. Yes, I know what you will say, and you are right: if Iwere in your place, and carried your scalding memories in my heart— I will take the night train back to-morrow. DENVER, June 20 God forgive us, mother, me are hunting thewrong man! I have not slept any all night. I am now awaiting, at dawn,for the morning train—and how the minutes drag, how they drag!

Mark Twain | 12 This Jacob Fuller is a cousin of the guilty one. How stupid we havebeen not to reflect that the guilty one would never again wear his ownname after that fiendish deed! The Denver Fuller is four years youngerthan the other one; he came here a young widower in '79, aged twenty-one—a year before you were married; and the documents to prove itare innumerable. Last night I talked with familiar friends of his whohave known him from the day of his arrival. I said nothing, but a fewdays from now I will land him in this town again, with the loss upon hismine made good; and there will be a banquet, and a torch-lightprocession, and there will not be any expense on anybody but me. Doyou call this "gush"? I am only a boy, as you well know; it is myprivilege. By and by I shall not be a boy any more. SILVER GULCH, July 3 Mother, he is gone! Gone, and left notrace. The scent was cold when I came. To-day I am out of bed for thefirst time since. I wish I were not a boy; then I could stand shocksbetter. They all think he went west. I start to-night, in a wagon—two orthree hours of that, then I get a train. I don't know where I'm going, butI must go; to try to keep still would be torture. Of course he has effaced himself with a new name and a disguise.This means that I may have to search the whole globe to find him.Indeed it is what I expect. Do you see, mother? It is I that am theWandering Jew. The irony of it! We arranged that for another. Think of the difficulties! And there would be none if I only couldadvertise for him. But if there is any way to do it that would notfrighten him, I have not been able to think it out, and I have tried tillmy brains are addled. "If the gentleman who lately bought a mine inMexico and sold one in Denver will send his address to" (to whom,mother!), "it will be explained to him that it was all a mistake; hisforgiveness will be asked, and full reparation made for a loss which hesustained in a certain matter." Do you see? He would think it a trap.Well, any one would. If I should say, "It is now known that he was notthe man wanted, but another man—a man who once bore the samename, but discarded it for good reasons"—would that answer? But theDenver people would wake up then and say "Oho!" and they wouldremember about the suspicious greenbacks, and say, "Why did he run

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away if he wasn't the right man?—it is too thin." If I failed to find himhe would be ruined there—there where there is no taint upon him now.You have a better head than mine. Help me. I have one clue, and only one. I know his handwriting. If he puts hisnew false name upon a hotel register and does not disguise it too much,it will be valuable to me if I ever run across it. SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 1898 You already know how well Ihave searched the states from Colorado to the Pacific, and how nearly Icame to getting him once. Well, I have had another close miss. It washere, yesterday. I struck his trail, hot, on the street, and followed it on arun to a cheap hotel. That was a costly mistake; a dog would have gonethe other way. But I am only part dog, and can get very humanly stupidwhen excited. He had been stopping in that house ten days; I almostknow, now, that he stops long nowhere, the past six or eight months,but is restless and has to keep moving. I understand that feeling! and Iknow what it is to feel it. He still uses the name he had registered whenI came so near catching him nine months ago—"James Walker";doubtless the same he adopted when he fled from Silver Gulch. Anunpretending man, and has small taste for fancy names. I recognizedthe hand easily, through its slight disguise. A square man, and not goodat shams and pretenses. They said he was just gone, on a journey; left no address; didn't saywhere he was going; looked frightened when asked to leave hisaddress; had no baggage but a cheap valise; carried it off on foot—a"stingy old person, and not much loss to the house." "Old!" I supposehe is, now I hardly heard; I was there but a moment. I rushed along histrail, and it led me to a wharf. Mother, the smoke of the steamer he hadtaken was just fading out on the horizon! I should have saved half onhour if I had gone in the right direction at first. I could have taken a fasttug, and should have stood a chance of catching that vessel. She isbound for Melbourne. HOPE CANYON, CALIFORNIA, October 3, 1900 You have a right to complain. "A letter a year" is a paucity; I freelyacknowledge it; but how can one write when there is nothing to writeabout but failures? No one can keep it up; it breaks the heart,

Mark Twain | 14 I told you—it seems ages ago, now—how I missed him atMelbourne, and then chased him all over Australasia for months onend. Well, then, after that I followed him to India; almost saw him inBombay; traced him all around—to Baroda, Rawal-Pindi, Lucknow,Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Calcutta, Madras—oh, everywhere;week after week, month after month, through the dust and swelter—always approximately on his track, sometimes close upon him, getnever catching him. And down to Ceylon, and then to—Never mind; byand by I will write it all out. I chased him home to California, and down to Mexico, and backagain to California. Since then I have been hunting him about the statefrom the first of last January down to a month ago. I feel almost sure heis not far from Hope Canyon; I traced him to a point thirty miles fromhere, but there I lost the trail; some one gave him a lift in a wagon, Isuppose. I am taking a rest, now—modified by searchings for the lost trail. Iwas tired to death, mother, and low-spirited, and sometimes cominguncomfortably near to losing hope; but the miners in this little camp aregood fellows, and I am used to their sort this long time back; and theirbreezy ways freshen a person up and make him forget his troubles. Ihave been here a month. I am cabining with a young fellow named"Sammy" Hillyer, about twenty-five, the only son of his mother—likeme—and loves her dearly, and writes to her every week—part of whichis like me. He is a timid body, and in the matter of intellect—well, hecannot be depended upon to set a river on fire; but no matter, he is wellliked; he is good and fine, and it is meat and bread and rest and luxuryto sit and talk with him and have a comradeship again. I wish "JamesWalker" could have it. He had friends; he liked company. That bringsup that picture of him, the time that I saw him last. The pathos of it! Itcomes before me often and often. At that very time, poor thing, I wasgirding up my conscience to make him move on again! Hillyer's heart is better than mine, better than anybody's in thecommunity, I suppose, for he is the one friend of the black sheep of thecamp—Flint Buckner—and the only man Flint ever talks with or

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allows to talk with him. He says he knows Flint's history, and that it istrouble that has made him what he is, and so one ought to be ascharitable toward him as one can. Now none but a pretty large heartcould find space to accommodate a lodger like Flint Buckner, from all Ihear about him outside. I think that this one detail will give you a betteridea of Sammy's character than any labored-out description I couldfurnish you of him. In one of our talks he said something about likethis: "Flint is a kinsman of mine, and he pours out all his troubles tome—empties his breast from time to time, or I reckon it would burst.There couldn't be any unhappier man, Archy Stillman; his life had beenmade up of misery of mind—he isn't near as old as he looks. He haslost the feel of reposefulness and peace—oh, years and years ago! Hedoesn't know what good luck is—never has had any; often says hewishes he was in the other hell, he is so tired of this one."

Mark Twain | 16IV "No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies."It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs andlaburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning andflashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for thewingless wild things that have their homes in the tree-tops and wouldvisit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple andyellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep ofthe woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduousflowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in he empty sky asolitary oesophagus slept upon motionless wing; everywhere broodedstillness, serenity, and the peace of God. October is the time—1900; Hope Canyon is the place, a silver-mining camp away down in the Esmeralda region. It is a secluded spot,high and remote; recent as to discovery; thought by its occupants to berich in metal—a year or two's prospecting will decide that matter oneway or the other. For inhabitants, the camp has about two hundredminers, one white woman and child, several Chinese washermen, fivesquaws, and a dozen vagrant buck Indians in rabbit-skin robes, batteredplug hats, and tin-can necklaces. There are no mills as yet; no church,no newspaper. The camp has existed but two years; it has made no bigstrike; the world is ignorant of its name and place. On both sides of the canyon the mountains rise wall-like, threethousand feet, and the long spiral of straggling huts down in its narrowbottom gets a kiss from the sun only once a day, when he sails over atnoon. The village is a couple of miles long; the cabins stand well apartfrom each other. The tavern is the only "frame" house—the only house,one might say. It occupies a central position, and is the evening resortof the population. They drink there, and play seven-up and dominoes;

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also billiards, for there is a table, crossed all over with torn placesrepaired with court-plaster; there are some cues, but no leathers; somechipped balls which clatter when they run, and do not slow upgradually, but stop suddenly and sit down; there is a part of a cube ofchalk, with a projecting jag of flint in it; and the man who can score sixon a single break can set up the drinks at the bar's expense. Flint Buckner's cabin was the last one of the village, going south; hissilver-claim was at the other end of the village, northward, and a littlebeyond the last hut in that direction. He was a sour creature, unsociable,and had no companionships. People who had tried to get acquaintedwith him had regretted it and dropped him. His history was not known.Some believed that Sammy Hillyer knew it; others said no. If asked,Hillyer said no, he was not acquainted with it. Flint had a meek Englishyouth of sixteen or seventeen with him, whom he treated roughly, bothin public and in private; and of course this lad was applied to forinformation, but with no success. Fetlock Jones—name of the youth—said that Flint picked him up on a prospecting tramp, and as he hadneither home nor friends in America, he had found it wise to stay andtake Buckner's hard usage for the sake of the salary, which was baconand beans. Further than this he could offer no testimony. Fetlock had been in this slavery for a month now, and under hismeek exterior he was slowly consuming to a cinder with the insults andhumiliations which his master had put upon him. For the meek sufferbitterly from these hurts; more bitterly, perhaps, than do the manliersort, who can burst out and get relief with words or blows when thelimit of endurance has been reached. Good-hearted people wanted tohelp Fetlock out of his trouble, and tried to get him to leave Buckner;but the boy showed fright at the thought, and said he "dasn't." Pat Rileyurged him, and said: "You leave the damned hunks and come with me; don't you beafraid. I'll take care of him." The boy thanked him with tears in his eyes, but shuddered and saidhe "dasn't risk it"; he said Flint would catch him alone, some time, inthe night, and then—"Oh, it makes me sick, Mr. Riley, to think of it."

Mark Twain | 18 Others said, "Run away from him; we'll stake you; skip out for thecoast some night." But all these suggestions failed; he said Flint wouldhunt him down and fetch him back, just for meanness. The people could not understand this. The boy's miseries wentsteadily on, week after week. It is quite likely that the people wouldhave understood if they had known how he was employing his sparetime. He slept in an out-cabin near Flint's; and there, nights, he nursedhis bruises and his humiliations, and studied and studied over a singleproblem—how he could murder Flint Buckner and not be found out. Itwas the only joy he had in life; these hours were the only ones in thetwenty-four which he looked forward to with eagerness and spent inhappiness. He thought of poison. No—that would not serve; the inquest wouldreveal where it was procured and who had procured it. He thought of ashot in the back in a lonely place when Flint would be homewardbound at midnight—his unvarying hour for the trip. No—somebodymight be near, and catch him. He thought of stabbing him in his sleep.No—he might strike an inefficient blow, and Flint would seize him. Heexamined a hundred different ways—none of them would answer; forin even the very obscurest and secretest of them there was always thefatal defect of a risk, a chance, a possibility that he might be found out.He would have none of that. But he was patient, endlessly patient. There was no hurry, he said tohimself. He would never leave Flint till he left him a corpse; there wasno hurry—he would find the way. It was somewhere, and he wouldendure shame and pain and misery until he found it. Yes, somewherethere was a way which would leave not a trace, not even the faintestclue to the murderer—there was no hurry—he would find that way, andthen—oh, then, it would just be good to be alive! Meantime he woulddiligently keep up his reputation for meekness; and also, as alwaystheretofore, he would allow no one to hear him say a resentful oroffensive thing about his oppressor. Two days before the before-mentioned October morning Flint hadbought some things, and he and Fetlock had brought them home toFlint's cabin: a fresh box of candles, which they put in the corner; a tin

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can of blasting-powder, which they placed upon the candle-box; a kegof blasting-powder, which they placed under Flint's bunk; a huge coilof fuse, which they hung on a peg. Fetlock reasoned that Flint's miningoperations had outgrown the pick, and that blasting was about to beginnow. He had seen blasting done, and he had a notion of the process, buthe had never helped in it. His conjecture was right—blasting-time hadcome. In the morning the pair carried fuse, drills, and the powder-can tothe shaft; it was now eight feet deep, and to get into it and out of it ashort ladder was used. They descended, and by command Fetlock heldthe drill—without any instructions as to the right way to hold it—andFlint proceeded to strike. The sledge came down; the drill sprang out ofFetlock's hand, almost as a matter of course. "You mangy son of a nigger, is that any way to hold a drill? Pick itup! Stand it up! There—hold fast. D—you! I'll teach you!" At the end of an hour the drilling was finished. "Now, then, charge it." The boy started to pour in the powder. "Idiot!" A heavy bat on the jaw laid the lad out. "Get up! You can't lie sniveling there. Now, then, stick in the fusefirst. Now put in the powder. Hold on, hold on! Are you going to fillthe hole all up? Of all the sap-headed milksops I—Put in some dirt! Putin some gravel! Tamp it down! Hold on, hold on! Oh, great Scott! getout of the way!" He snatched the iron and tamped the charge himself,meantime cursing and blaspheming like a fiend. Then he fired the fuse,climbed out of the shaft, and ran fifty yards away, Fetlock following.They stood waiting a few minutes, then a great volume of smoke androcks burst high into the air with a thunderous explosion; after a littlethere was a shower of descending stones; then all was serene again. "I wish to God you'd been in it!" remarked the master. They went down the shaft, cleaned it out, drilled another hole, andput in another charge. "Look here! How much fuse are you proposing to waste? Don't youknow how to time a fuse?" "No, sir."

Mark Twain | 20 "You don't! Well, if you don't beat anything I ever saw!" He climbed out of the shaft and spoke down: "Well, idiot, are you going to be all day? Cut the fuse and light it!" The trembling creature began: "If you please, sir, I—" "You talk back to me? Cut it and light it!" The boy cut and lit. "Ger-reat Scott! a one-minute fuse! I wish you were in—" In his rage he snatched the ladder out of the shaft and ran. The boywas aghast. "Oh, my God! Help. Help! Oh, save me!" he implored. "Oh, whatcan I do! What can I do!" He backed against the wall as tightly as he could; the sputtering fusefrightened the voice out of him; his breath stood still; he stood gazingand impotent; in two seconds, three seconds, four he would be flyingtoward the sky torn to fragments. Then he had an inspiration. He sprangat the fuse; severed the inch of it that was left above ground, and wassaved. He sank down limp and half lifeless with fright, his strength gone;but he muttered with a deep joy: "He has learnt me! I knew there was a way, if I would wait." After a matter of five minutes Buckner stole to the shaft, lookingworried and uneasy, and peered down into it. He took in the situation;he saw what had happened. He lowered the ladder, and the boy draggedhimself weakly up it. He was very white. His appearance addedsomething to Buckner's uncomfortable state, and he said, with a showof regret and sympathy which sat upon him awkwardly from lack ofpractice: "It was an accident, you know. Don't say anything about it toanybody; I was excited, and didn't notice what I was doing. You're notlooking well; you've worked enough for to-day; go down to my cabinand eat what you want, and rest. It's just an accident, you know, onaccount of my being excited." "It scared me," said the lad, as he started away; "but I learntsomething, so I don't mind it."

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"Damned easy to please!" muttered Buckner, following him with hiseye. "I wonder if he'll tell? Mightn't he?... I wish it had killed him." The boy took no advantage of his holiday in the matter of resting; heemployed it in work, eager and feverish and happy work. A thickgrowth of chaparral extended down the mountainside clear to Flint'scabin; the most of Fetlock's labor was done in the dark intricacies ofthat stubborn growth; the rest of it was done in his own shanty. At lastall was complete, and he said: "If he's got any suspicions that I'm going to tell on him, he won'tkeep them long, to-morrow. He will see that I am the same milksop as Ialways was—all day and the next. And the day after to-morrow nightthere 'll be an end of him; nobody will ever guess who finished him upnor how it was done. He dropped me the idea his own self, and that'sodd."

Mark Twain | 22VThe next day came and wentIt is now almost midnight, and in five minutes the new morning willbegin. The scene is in the tavern billiard-room. Rough men in roughclothing, slouch-hats, breeches stuffed into boot-tops, some with vests,none with coats, are grouped about the boiler-iron stove, which hasruddy cheeks and is distributing a grateful warmth; the billiard-balls areclacking; there is no other sound—that is, within; the wind is fitfullymoaning without. The men look bored; also expectant. A hulkingbroad-shouldered miner, of middle age, with grizzled whiskers, and anunfriendly eye set in an unsociable face, rises, slips a coil of fuse uponhis arm, gathers up some other personal properties, and departs withoutword or greeting to anybody. It is Flint Buckner. As the door closesbehind him a buzz of talk breaks out. "The regularest man that ever was," said Jake Parker, the blacksmith:"you can tell when it's twelve just by him leaving, without looking atyour Waterbury." "And it's the only virtue he's got, as fur as I know," said PeterHawes, miner. "He's just a blight on this society," said Wells-Fargo's man,Ferguson. "If I was running this shop I'd make him say something,some time or other, or vamos the ranch." This with a suggestive glanceat the barkeeper, who did not choose to see it, since the man underdiscussion was a good customer, and went home pretty well set up,every night, with refreshments furnished from the bar. "Say," said Ham Sandwich, miner, "does any of you boys everrecollect of him asking you to take a drink?" "Him? Flint Buckner? Oh, Laura!"

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This sarcastic rejoinder came in a spontaneous general outburst inone form of words or another from the crowd. After a brief silence, PatRiley, miner, said: "He's the 15-puzzle, that cuss. And his boy's another one. I can'tmake them out." "Nor anybody else," said Ham Sandwich; "and if they are 15-puzzleshow are you going to rank up that other one? When it comes to A 1right-down solid mysteriousness, he lays over both of them. Easy—don't he?" "You bet!" Everybody said it. Every man but one. He was the new-comer—Peterson. He ordered the drinks all round, and asked who No. 3 mightbe. All answered at once, "Archy Stillman!" "Is he a mystery?" asked Peterson. "Is he a mystery? Is Archy Stillman a mystery?" said Wells-Fargo'sman, Ferguson. "Why, the fourth dimension's foolishness to him." For Ferguson was learned. Peterson wanted to hear all about him; everybody wanted to tell him;everybody began. But Billy Stevens, the barkeeper, called the house toorder, and said one at a time was best. He distributed the drinks, andappointed Ferguson to lead. Ferguson said: "Well, he's a boy. And that is just about all we know about him. Youcan pump him till you are tired; it ain't any use; you won't get anything.At least about his intentions, or line of business, or where he's from,and such things as that. And as for getting at the nature and get-up ofhis main big chief mystery, why, he'll just change the subject, that's all.You can guess till you're black in the face—it's your privilege—butsuppose you do, where do you arrive at? Nowhere, as near as I canmake out." "What is his big chief one?" "Sight, maybe. Hearing, maybe. Instinct, maybe. Magic, maybe.Take your choice—grownups, twenty-five; children and servants, halfprice. Now I'll tell you what he can do. You can start here, and justdisappear; you can go and hide wherever you want to, I don't care

Mark Twain | 24where it is, nor how far—and he'll go straight and put his finger onyou." "You don't mean it!" "I just do, though. Weather's nothing to him—elemental conditionsis nothing to him—he don't even take notice of them." "Oh, come! Dark? Rain? Snow? Hey?" "It's all the same to him. He don't give a damn." "Oh, say—including fog, per'aps?" "Fog! he's got an eye 't can plunk through it like a bullet." "Now, boys, honor bright, what's he giving me?" "It's a fact!" they all shouted. "Go on, Wells-Fargo." "Well, sir, you can leave him here, chatting with the boys, and youcan slip out and go to any cabin in this camp and open a book—yes, sir,a dozen of them—and take the page in your memory, and he'll start outand go straight to that cabin and open every one of them books at theright page, and call it off, and never make a mistake." "He must be the devil!" "More than one has thought it. Now I'll tell you a perfectlywonderful thing that he done. The other night he—" There was a sudden great murmur of sounds outside, the door flewopen, and an excited crowd burst in, with the camp's one white womanin the lead and crying: "My child! my child! she's lost and gone! For the love of God helpme to find Archy Stillman; we've hunted everywhere!" Said the barkeeper: "Sit down, sit down, Mrs. Hogan, and don't worry. He asked for abed three hours ago, tuckered out tramping the trails the way he'salways doing, and went up-stairs. Ham Sandwich, run up and roust himout; he's in No. 14." The youth was soon down-stairs and ready. He asked Mrs. Hoganfor particulars. "Bless you, dear, there ain't any; I wish there was. I put her to sleepat seven in the evening, and when I went in there an hour ago to go tobed myself, she was gone. I rushed for your cabin, dear, and you wasn'tthere, and I've hunted for you ever since, at every cabin down the

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gulch, and now I've come up again, and I'm that distracted and scaredand heart-broke; but, thanks to God, I've found you at last, dear heart,and you'll find my child. Come on! come quick!" "Move right along; I'm with you, madam. Go to your cabin first." The whole company streamed out to join the hunt. All the southernhalf of the village was up, a hundred men strong, and waiting outside, avague dark mass sprinkled with twinkling lanterns. The mass fell intocolumns by threes and fours to accommodate itself to the narrow road,and strode briskly along southward in the wake of the leaders. In a fewminutes the Hogan cabin was reached. "There's the bunk," said Mrs. Hogan; "there's where she was; it'swhere I laid her at seven o'clock; but where she is now, God onlyknows." "Hand me a lantern," said Archy. He set it on the hard earth floorand knelt by it, pretending to examine the ground closely. "Here's hertrack," he said, touching the ground here and there and yonder with hisfinger. "Do you see?" Several of the company dropped upon their knees and did their bestto see. One or two thought they discerned something like a track; theothers shook their heads and confessed that the smooth hard surfacehad no marks upon it which their eyes were sharp enough to discover.One said, "Maybe a child's foot could make a mark on it, but I don't seehow." Young Stillman stepped outside, held the light to the ground, turnedleftward, and moved three steps, closely examining; then said, "I've gotthe direction—come along; take the lantern, somebody." He strode off swiftly southward, the files following, swaying andbending in and out with the deep curves of the gorge. Thus a mile, andthe mouth of the gorge was reached; before them stretched thesagebrush plain, dim, vast, and vague. Stillman called a halt, saying,"We mustn't start wrong, now; we must take the direction again." He took a lantern and examined the ground for a matter of twentyyards; then said, "Come on; it's all right," and gave up the lantern. Inand out among the sage-bushes he marched, a quarter of a mile, bearinggradually to the right; then took a new direction and made another great

Mark Twain | 26semicircle; then changed again and moved due west nearly half amile—and stopped. "She gave it up, here, poor little chap. Hold the lantern. You can seewhere she sat." But this was in a slick alkali flat which was surfaced like steel, andno person in the party was quite hardy enough to claim an eyesight thatcould detect the track of a cushion on a veneer like that. The bereavedmother fell upon her knees and kissed the spot, lamenting. "But where is she, then?" some one said. "She didn't stay here. Wecan see that much, anyway." Stillman moved about in a circle around the place, with the lantern,pretending to hunt for tracks. "Well!" he said presently, in an annoyed tone, "I don't understand it."He examined again. "No use. She was here—that's certain; she neverwalked away from here—and that's certain. It's a puzzle; I can't make itout." The mother lost heart then. "Oh, my God! oh, blessed Virgin! some flying beast has got her. I'llnever see her again!" "Ah, don't give up," said Archy. "We'll find her—don't give up." "God bless you for the words, Archy Stillman!" and she seized hishand and kissed it fervently. Peterson, the new-comer, whispered satirically in Ferguson's ear: "Wonderful performance to find this place, wasn't it? Hardly worthwhile to come so far, though; any other supposititious place would haveanswered just as well—hey?" Ferguson was not pleased with the innuendo. He said, with somewarmth: "Do you mean to insinuate that the child hasn't been here? I tell youthe child has been here! Now if you want to get yourself into as tidy alittle fuss as—" "All right!" sang out Stillman. "Come, everybody, and look at this! Itwas right under our noses all the time, and we didn't see it." There was a general plunge for the ground at the place where thechild was alleged to have rested, and many eyes tried hard and

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hopefully to see the thing that Archy's finger was resting upon. Therewas a pause, then a several-barreled sigh of disappointment. Pat Rileyand Ham Sandwich said, in the one breath: "What is it, Archy? There's nothing here." "Nothing? Do you call that nothing?" and he swiftly traced upon theground a form with his finger. "There—don't you recognize it now? It'sInjun Billy's track. He's got the child." "God be praised!" from the mother. "Take away the lantern. I've got the direction. Follow!" He started on a run, racing in and out among the sage-bushes amatter of three hundred yards, and disappeared over a sand-wave; theothers struggled after him, caught him up, and found him waiting. Tensteps away was a little wickiup, a dim and formless shelter of rags andold horse-blankets, a dull light showing through its chinks. "You lead, Mrs. Hogan," said the lad. "It's your privilege to be first." All followed the sprint she made for the wickiup, and saw, with her,the picture its interior afforded. Injun Billy was sitting on the ground;the child was asleep beside him. The mother hugged it with a wildembrace, which included Archy Stillman, the grateful tears runningdown her face, and in a choked and broken voice she poured out agolden stream of that wealth of worshiping endearments which has itshome in full richness nowhere but in the Irish heart. "I find her bymeby it is ten o'clock," Billy explained. "She 'sleep outyonder, ve'y tired—face wet, been cryin', 'spose; fetch her home, feedher, she heap much hungry—go 'sleep 'gin." In her limitless gratitude the happy mother waived rank and huggedhim too, calling him "the angel of God in disguise." And he probablywas in disguise if he was that kind of an official. He was dressed for thecharacter. At half past one in the morning the procession burst into the villagesinging, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," waving its lanternsand swallowing the drinks that were brought out all along its course. Itconcentrated at the tavern, and made a night of what was left of themorning.

Mark Twain | 28 PART II

IThe next afternoon the village was electrified with an immensesensation. A grave and dignified foreigner of distinguished bearing andappearance had arrived at the tavern, and entered this formidable nameupon the register: SHERLOCK HOLMES The news buzzed from cabin to cabin, from claim to claim; toolswere dropped, and the town swarmed toward the center of interest. Aman passing out at the northern end of the village shouted it to PatRiley, whose claim was the next one to Flint Buckner's. At that timeFetlock Jones seemed to turn sick. He muttered to himself: "Uncle Sherlock! The mean luck of it!—that he should come justwhen...." He dropped into a reverie, and presently said to himself: "Butwhat's the use of being afraid of him? Anybody that knows him theway I do knows he can't detect a crime except where he plans it all outbeforehand and arranges the clues and hires some fellow to commit itaccording to instructions.... Now there ain't going to be any clues thistime—so, what show has he got? None at all. No, sir; everything'sready. If I was to risk putting it off—No, I won't run any risk like that.Flint Buckner goes out of this world to-night, for sure." Then anothertrouble presented itself. "Uncle Sherlock 'll be wanting to talk homematters with me this evening, and how am I going to get rid of him? for

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I've got to be at my cabin a minute or two about eight o'clock." Thiswas an awkward matter, and cost him much thought. But he found away to beat the difficulty. "We'll go for a walk, and I'll leave him in theroad a minute, so that he won't see what it is I do: the best way to throwa detective off the track, anyway, is to have him along when you arepreparing the thing. Yes, that's the safest—I'll take him with me." Meantime the road in front of the tavern was blocked with villagerswaiting and hoping for a glimpse of the great man. But he kept hisroom, and did not appear. None but Ferguson, Jake Parker theblacksmith, and Ham Sandwich had any luck. These enthusiasticadmirers of the great scientific detective hired the tavern's detained-baggage lockup, which looked into the detective's room across a littlealleyway ten or twelve feet wide, ambushed themselves in it, and cutsome peep-holes in the window-blind. Mr. Holmes's blinds were down;but by and by he raised them. It gave the spies a hair-lifting butpleasurable thrill to find themselves face to face with the ExtraordinaryMan who had filled the world with the fame of his more than humaningenuities. There he sat—not a myth, not a shadow, but real, alive,compact of substance, and almost within touching distance with thehand. "Look at that head!" said Ferguson, in an awed voice. "By gracious!that's a head!" "You bet!" said the blacksmith, with deep reverence. "Look at hisnose! look at his eyes! Intellect? Just a battery of it!" "And that paleness," said Ham Sandwich. "Comes from thought—that's what it comes from. Hell! duffers like us don't know what realthought is." "No more we don't," said Ferguson. "What we take for thinking isjust blubber-and-slush." "Right you are, Wells-Fargo. And look at that frown—that's deepthinking—away down, down, forty fathom into the bowels of things.He's on the track of something." "Well, he is, and don't you forget it. Say—look at that awfulgravity—look at that pallid solemness—there ain't any corpse can layover it."

Mark Twain | 30 "No, sir, not for dollars! And it's his'n by hereditary rights, too; he'sbeen dead four times a'ready, and there's history for it. Three timesnatural, once by accident. I've heard say he smells damp and cold, likea grave. And he—" "'Sh! Watch him! There—he's got his thumb on the bump on thenear corner of his forehead, and his forefinger on the off one. His think-works is just a-grinding now, you bet your other shirt." "That's so. And now he's gazing up toward heaven and stroking hismustache slow, and—" "Now he has rose up standing, and is putting his clues together onhis left fingers with his right finger. See? he touches the forefinger—now middle finger—now ring-finger—" "Stuck!" "Look at him scowl! He can't seem to make out that clue. So he—" "See him smile!—like a tiger—and tally off the other fingers likenothing! He's got it, boys; he's got it sure!" "Well, I should say! I'd hate to be in that man's place that he's after." Mr. Holmes drew a table to the window, sat down with his back tothe spies, and proceeded to write. The spies withdrew their eyes fromthe peep-holes, lit their pipes, and settled themselves for a comfortablesmoke and talk. Ferguson said, with conviction: "Boys, it's no use talking, he's a wonder! He's got the signs of it allover him." "You hain't ever said a truer word than that, Wells-Fargo," said JakeParker. "Say, wouldn't it 'a' been nuts if he'd a-been here last night?" "Oh, by George, but wouldn't it!" said Ferguson. "Then we'd haveseen scientific work. Intellect—just pure intellect—away up on theupper levels, dontchuknow. Archy is all right, and it don't becomeanybody to belittle him, I can tell you. But his gift is only just eyesight,sharp as an owl's, as near as I can make it out just a grand naturalanimal talent, no more, no less, and prime as far as it goes, but nointellect in it, and for awfulness and marvelousness no more to becompared to what this man does than—than—Why, let me tell youwhat he'd have done. He'd have stepped over to Hogan's and glanced—just glanced, that's all—at the premises, and that's enough. See

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everything? Yes, sir, to the last little detail; and he'll know more aboutthat place than the Hogans would know in seven years. Next, he wouldsit down on the bunk, just as ca'm, and say to Mrs. Hogan—Say, Ham,consider that you are Mrs. Hogan. I'll ask the questions; you answerthem." "All right; go on." "'Madam, if you please—attention—do not let your mind wander.Now, then—sex of the child?' "'Female, your Honor.' "'Um—female. Very good, very good. Age?' "'Turned six, your Honor.' "'Um—young, weak—two miles. Weariness will overtake it then. Itwill sink down and sleep. We shall find it two miles away, or less.Teeth?' "'Five, your Honor, and one a-coming.' "'Very good, very good, very good, indeed.' You see, boys, he knowsa clue when he sees it, when it wouldn't mean a dern thing to anybodyelse. 'Stockings, madam? Shoes?' "'Yes, your Honor—both.' "'Yarn, perhaps? Morocco?' "'Yarn, your Honor. And kip.' "'Um—kip. This complicates the matter. However, let it go—weshall manage. Religion?' "'Catholic, your Honor.' "'Very good. Snip me a bit from the bed blanket, please. Ah, thanks.Part wool—foreign make. Very well. A snip from some garment of thechild's, please. Thanks. Cotton. Shows wear. An excellent clue,excellent. Pass me a pallet of the floor dirt, if you'll be so kind. Thanks,many thanks. Ah, admirable, admirable! Now we know where we are, Ithink.' You see, boys, he's got all the clues he wants now; he don't needanything more. Now, then, what does this Extraordinary Man do? Helays those snips and that dirt out on the table and leans over them on hiselbows, and puts them together side by side and studies them—mumbles to himself, 'Female'; changes them around—mumbles, 'Sixyears old'; changes them this way and that—again mumbles: 'Five

Mark Twain | 32teeth—one a-coming—Catholic—yarn—cotton—kip—damn that kip.'Then he straightens up and gazes toward heaven, and plows his handsthrough his hair—plows and plows, muttering, 'Damn that kip!' Thenhe stands up and frowns, and begins to tally off his clues on hisfingers—and gets stuck at the ring-finger. But only just a minute—thenhis face glares all up in a smile like a house afire, and he straightens upstately and majestic, and says to the crowd, 'Take a lantern, a couple ofyou, and go down to Injun Billy's and fetch the child—the rest of yougo 'long home to bed; good-night, madam; good-night, gents.' And hebows like the Matterhorn, and pulls out for the tavern. That's his style,and the Only—scientific, intellectual—all over in fifteen minutes—nopoking around all over the sage-brush range an hour and a half in amass-meeting crowd for him, boys—you hear me!" "By Jackson, it's grand!" said Ham Sandwich. "Wells-Fargo, you'vegot him down to a dot. He ain't painted up any exacter to the life in thebooks. By George, I can just see him—can't you, boys?" "You bet you! It's just a photograft, that's what it is." Ferguson was profoundly pleased with his success, and grateful. Hesat silently enjoying his happiness a little while, then he murmured,with a deep awe in his voice, "I wonder if God made him?" There was no response for a moment; then Ham Sandwich said,reverently: "Not all at one time, I reckon."

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IIAt eight o'clock that evening two persons were groping their way pastFlint Buckner's cabin in the frosty gloom. They were Sherlock Holmesand his nephew. "Stop here in the road a moment, uncle," said Fetlock, "while I run tomy cabin; I won't be gone a minute." He asked for something—the uncle furnished it—then hedisappeared in the darkness, but soon returned, and the talking-walkwas resumed. By nine o'clock they had wandered back to the tavern.They worked their way through the billiard-room, where a crowd hadgathered in the hope of getting a glimpse of the Extraordinary Man. Aroyal cheer was raised. Mr. Holmes acknowledged the compliment witha series of courtly bows, and as he was passing out his nephew said tothe assemblage: "Uncle Sherlock's got some work to do, gentlemen, that 'll keep himtill twelve or one; but he'll be down again then, or earlier if he can, andhopes some of you'll be left to take a drink with him." "By George, he's just a duke, boys! Three cheers for SherlockHolmes, the greatest man that ever lived!" shouted Ferguson. "Hip, hip,hip—" "Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Tiger!" The uproar shook the building, so hearty was the feeling the boys putinto their welcome. Up-stairs the uncle reproached the nephew gently,saying: "What did you get me into that engagement for?" "I reckon you don't want to be unpopular, do you, uncle? Well, then,don't you put on any exclusiveness in a mining-camp, that's all. Theboys admire you; but if you was to leave without taking a drink withthem, they'd set you down for a snob. And besides, you said you hadhome talk enough in stock to keep us up and at it half the night."

Mark Twain | 34 The boy was right, and wise—the uncle acknowledged it. The boywas wise in another detail which he did not mention—except tohimself: "Uncle and the others will come handy—in the way of nailingan alibi where it can't be budged." He and his uncle talked diligently about three hours. Then, aboutmidnight, Fetlock stepped down-stairs and took a position in the dark adozen steps from the tavern, and waited. Five minutes later FlintBuckner came rocking out of the billiard-room and almost brushed himas he passed. "I've got him!" muttered the boy. He continued to himself, lookingafter the shadowy form: "Good-by—good-by for good, Flint Buckner;you called my mother a—well, never mind what: it's all right, now;you're taking your last walk, friend." He went musing back into the tavern. "From now till one is an hour.We'll spend it with the boys; it's good for the alibi." He brought Sherlock Holmes to the billiard-room, which wasjammed with eager and admiring miners; the guest called the drinks,and the fun began. Everybody was happy; everybody wascomplimentary; the ice was soon broken, songs, anecdotes, and moredrinks followed, and the pregnant minutes flew. At six minutes to one,when the jollity was at its highest— BOOM!! There was silence instantly. The deep sound came rolling andrumbling frown peak to peak up the gorge, then died down, and ceased.The spell broke, then, and the men made a rush for the door, saying: "Something's blown up!" Outside, a voice in the darkness said, "It's away down the gorge; Isaw the flash." The crowd poured down the canyon—Holmes, Fetlock, ArchyStillman, everybody. They made the mile in a few minutes. By the lightof a lantern they found the smooth and solid dirt floor of FlintBuckner's cabin; of the cabin itself not a vestige remained, not a rag nora splinter. Nor any sign of Flint. Search-parties sought here and thereand yonder, and presently a cry went up. "Here he is!"

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It was true. Fifty yards down the gulch they had found him—that is,they had found a crushed and lifeless mass which represented him.Fetlock Jones hurried thither with the others and looked. The inquest was a fifteen-minute affair. Ham Sandwich, foreman ofthe jury, handed up the verdict, which was phrased with a certainunstudied literary grace, and closed with this finding, to wit: that"deceased came to his death by his own act or some other person orpersons unknown to this jury not leaving any family or similar effectsbehind but his cabin which was blown away and God have mercy onhis soul amen." Then the impatient jury rejoined the main crowd, for the storm-center of interest was there—Sherlock Holmes. The miners stood silentand reverent in a half-circle, inclosing a large vacant space whichincluded the front exposure of the site of the late premises. In thisconsiderable space the Extraordinary Man was moving about, attendedby his nephew with a lantern. With a tape he took measurements of thecabin site; of the distance from the wall of chaparral to the road; of theheight of the chaparral bushes; also various other measurements. Hegathered a rag here, a splinter there, and a pinch of earth yonder,inspected them profoundly, and preserved them. He took the "lay" ofthe place with a pocket-compass, allowing two seconds for magneticvariation. He took the time (Pacific) by his watch, correcting it for localtime. He paced off the distance from the cabin site to the corpse, andcorrected that for tidal differentiation. He took the altitude with apocket-aneroid, and the temperature with a pocket-thermometer.Finally he said, with a stately bow: "It is finished. Shall we return, gentlemen?" He took up the line of march for the tavern, and the crowd fell intohis wake, earnestly discussing and admiring the Extraordinary Man,and interlarding guesses as to the origin of the tragedy and who theauthor of it might he. "My, but it's grand luck having him here—hey, boys?" saidFerguson. "It's the biggest thing of the century," said Ham Sandwich. "It 'll goall over the world; you mark my words."

Mark Twain | 36 "You bet!" said Jake Parker, the blacksmith. "It 'll boom this camp.Ain't it so, Wells-Fargo?" "Well, as you want my opinion—if it's any sign of how I think aboutit, I can tell you this: yesterday I was holding the Straight Flush claimat two dollars a foot; I'd like to see the man that can get it at sixteen to-day." "Right you are, Wells-Fargo! It's the grandest luck a new camp everstruck. Say, did you see him collar them little rags and dirt and things?What an eye! He just can't overlook a clue—'tain't in him." "That's so. And they wouldn't mean a thing to anybody else; but tohim, why, they're just a book—large print at that." "Sure's you're born! Them odds and ends have got their little oldsecret, and they think there ain't anybody can pull it; but, land! when hesets his grip there they've got to squeal, and don't you forget it." "Boys, I ain't sorry, now, that he wasn't here to roust out the child;this is a bigger thing, by a long sight. Yes, sir, and more tangled up andscientific and intellectual." "I reckon we're all of us glad it's turned out this way. Glad? 'George!it ain't any name for it. Dontchuknow, Archy could 've learnt somethingif he'd had the nous to stand by and take notice of how that man worksthe system. But no; he went poking up into the chaparral and justmissed the whole thing." "It's true as gospel; I seen it myself. Well, Archy's young. He'll knowbetter one of these days." "Say, boys, who do you reckon done it?" That was a difficult question, and brought out a world ofunsatisfying conjecture. Various men were mentioned as possibilities,but one by one they were discarded as not being eligible. No one butyoung Hillyer had been intimate with Flint Buckner; no one had reallyhad a quarrel with him; he had affronted every man who had tried tomake up to him, although not quite offensively enough to requirebloodshed. There was one name that was upon every tongue from thestart, but it was the last to get utterance—Fetlock Jones's. It was PatRiley that mentioned it.

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"Oh, well," the boys said, "of course we've all thought of him,because he had a million rights to kill Flint Buckner, and it was just hisplain duty to do it. But all the same there's two things we can't getaround: for one thing, he hasn't got the sand; and for another, he wasn'tanywhere near the place when it happened." "I know it," said Pat. "He was there in the billiard-room with uswhen it happened." "Yes, and was there all the time for an hour before it happened." "It's so. And lucky for him, too. He'd have been suspected in aminute if it hadn't been for that."

Mark Twain | 38IIIThe tavern dining-room had been cleared of all its furniture save onesix-foot pine table and a chair. This table was against one end of theroom; the chair was on it; Sherlock Holmes, stately, imposing,impressive, sat in the chair. The public stood. The room was full. Thetobacco-smoke was dense, the stillness profound. The Extraordinary Man raised his hand to command additionalsilence; held it in the air a few moments; then, in brief, crisp terms heput forward question after question, and noted the answers with "Um-ums," nods of the head, and so on. By this process he learned all aboutFlint Buckner, his character, conduct, and habits, that the people wereable to tell him. It thus transpired that the Extraordinary Man's nephewwas the only person in the camp who had a killing-grudge against FlintBuckner. Mr. Holmes smiled compassionately upon the witness, andasked, languidly: "Do any of you gentlemen chance to know where the lad FetlockJones was at the time of the explosion?" A thunderous response followed: "In the billiard-room of this house!" "Ah. And had he just come in?" "Been there all of an hour!" "Ah. It is about—about—well, about how far might it be to the sceneof the explosions." "All of a mile!" "Ah. It isn't much of an alibi, 'tis true, but—" A storm-burst of laughter, mingled with shouts of "By jiminy, buthe's chain-lightning!" and "Ain't you sorry you spoke, Sandy?" shut offthe rest of the sentence, and the crushed witness drooped his blushingface in pathetic shame. The inquisitor resumed:

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"The lad Jones's somewhat distant connection with the case"(laughter) "having been disposed of, let us now call the eye-witnessesof the tragedy, and listen to what they have to say." He got out his fragmentary clues and arranged them on a sheet ofcardboard on his knee. The house held its breath and watched. "We have the longitude and the latitude, corrected for magneticvariation, and this gives us the exact location of the tragedy. We havethe altitude, the temperature, and the degree of humidity prevailing—inestimably valuable, since they enable us to estimate with precisionthe degree of influence which they would exercise upon the mood anddisposition of the assassin at that time of the night." (Buzz of admiration; muttered remark, "By George, but he's deep.")He fingered his clues. "And now let us ask these mute witnesses tospeak to us. "Here we have an empty linen shot-bag. What is its message? This:that robbery was the motive, not revenge. What is its further message?This: that the assassin was of inferior intelligence—shall we say light-witted, or perhaps approaching that? How do we know this? Because aperson of sound intelligence would not have proposed to rob the manBuckner, who never had much money with him. But the assassin mighthave been a stranger? Let the bag speak again. I take from it this article.It is a bit of silver-bearing quartz. It is peculiar. Examine it, please—you—and you—and you. Now pass it back, please. There is but onelode on this coast which produces just that character and color ofquartz; and that is a lode which crops out for nearly two miles on astretch, and in my opinion is destined, at no distant day, to confer uponits locality a globe-girdling celebrity, and upon its two hundred ownersriches beyond the dreams of avarice. Name that lode, please." "The Consolidated Christian Science and Mary Ann!" was theprompt response. A wild crash of hurrahs followed, and every man reached for hisneighbor's hand and wrung it, with tears in his eyes; and Wells-FargoFerguson shouted, "The Straight Flush is on the lode, and up she goesto a hunched and fifty a foot—you hear me!" When quiet fell, Mr. Holmes resumed:

Mark Twain | 40 "We perceive, then, that three facts are established, to wit: theassassin was approximately light-witted; he was not a stranger; hismotive was robbery, not revenge. Let us proceed. I hold in my hand asmall fragment of fuse, with the recent smell of fire upon it. What is itstestimony? Taken with the corroborative evidence of the quartz, itreveals to us that the assassin was a miner. What does it tell us further?This, gentlemen: that the assassination was consummated by means ofan explosive. What else does it say? This: that the explosive waslocated against the side of the cabin nearest the road—the front side—for within six feet of that spot I found it. "I hold in my fingers a burnt Swedish match—the kind one rubs on asafety-box. I found it in the road, six hundred and twenty-two feet fromthe abolished cabin. What does it say? This: that the train was firedfrom that point. What further does it tell us? This: that the assassin wasleft-handed. How do I know this? I should not be able to explain toyou, gentlemen, how I know it, the signs being so subtle that only longexperience and deep study can enable one to detect them. But the signsare here, and they are reinforced by a fact which you must have oftennoticed in the great detective narratives—that all assassins are left-handed." "By Jackson, that's so." said Ham Sandwich, bringing his great handdown with a resounding slap upon his thigh; "blamed if I ever thoughtof it before." "Nor I!" "Nor I!" cried several. "Oh, there can't anything escapehim—look at his eye!" "Gentlemen, distant as the murderer was from his doomed victim, hedid not wholly escape injury. This fragment of wood which I nowexhibit to you struck him. It drew blood. Wherever he is, he bears thetelltale mark. I picked it up where he stood when he fired the fataltrain," He looked out over the house from his high perch, and hiscountenance began to darken; he slowly raised his hand, and pointed: "There stands the assassin!" For a moment the house was paralyzed with amazement; then twentyvoices burst out with: "Sammy Hillyer? Oh, hell, no! Him? It's pure foolishness!"

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"Take care, gentlemen—be not hasty. Observe—he has the blood-mark on his brow." Hillyer turned white with fright. He was near to crying. He turnedthis way and that, appealing to every face for help and sympathy; andheld out his supplicating hands toward Holmes and began to plead: "Don't, oh, don't! I never did it; I give my word I never did it. Theway I got this hurt on my forehead was—" "Arrest him, constable!" cried Holmes. "I will swear out thewarrant." The constable moved reluctantly forward—hesitated—stopped. Hillyer broke out with another appeal. "Oh, Archy, don't let them doit; it would kill mother! You know how I got the hurt. Tell them, andsave me, Archy; save me!" Stillman worked his way to the front, and said: "Yes, I'll save you. Don't be afraid." Then he said to the house,"Never mind how he got the hurt; it hasn't anything to do with this case,and isn't of any consequence." "God bless you, Archy, for a true friend!" "Hurrah for Archy! Go in, boy, and play 'em a knock-down flush totheir two pair 'n' a jack!" shouted the house, pride in their home talentand a patriotic sentiment of loyalty to it rising suddenly in the publicheart and changing the whole attitude of the situation. Young Stillman waited for the noise to cease; then he said: "I will ask Tom Jeffries to stand by that door yonder, and ConstableHarris to stand by the other one here, and not let anybody leave theroom. "Said and done. Go on, old man!" "The criminal is present, I believe. I will show him to you beforelong, in case I am right in my guess. Now I will tell you all about thetragedy, from start to finish. The motive wasn't robbery; it was revenge.The murderer wasn't light-witted. He didn't stand six hundred andtwenty-two feet away. He didn't get hit with a piece of wood. He didn'tplace the explosive against the cabin. He didn't bring a shot-bag withhim, and he wasn't left-handed. With the exception of these errors, thedistinguished guest's statement of the case is substantially correct."

Mark Twain | 42 A comfortable laugh rippled over the house; friend nodded to friend,as much as to say, "That's the word, with the bark on it. Good lad, goodboy. He ain't lowering his flag any!" The guest's serenity was not disturbed. Stillman resumed: "I also have some witnesses; and I will presently tell you where youcan find some more." He held up a piece of coarse wire; the crowdcraned their necks to see. "It has a smooth coating of melted tallow onit. And here is a candle which is burned half-way down. The remaininghalf of it has marks cut upon it an inch apart. Soon I will tell you whereI found these things. I will now put aside reasonings, guesses, theimpressive hitchings of odds and ends of clues together, and the othershowy theatricals of the detective trade, and tell you in a plain,straightforward way just how this dismal thing happened." He paused a moment, for effect—to allow silence and suspense tointensify and concentrate the house's interest; then he went on: "The assassin studied out his plan with a good deal of pains. It was agood plan, very ingenious, and showed an intelligent mind, not a feebleone. It was a plan which was well calculated to ward off all suspicionfrom its inventor. In the first place, he marked a candle into spaces aninch apart, and lit it and timed it. He found it took three hours to burnfour inches of it. I tried it myself for half an hour, awhile ago, up-stairshere, while the inquiry into Flint Buckner's character and ways wasbeing conducted in this room, and I arrived in that way at the rate of acandle's consumption when sheltered from the wind. Having proved histrial candle's rate, he blew it out—I have already shown it to you—andput his inch-marks on a fresh one. "He put the fresh one into a tin candlestick. Then at the five-hourmark he bored a hole through the candle with a red-hot wire. I havealready shown you the wire, with a smooth coat of tallow on it—tallowthat had been melted and had cooled. "With labor—very hard labor, I should say—he struggled up throughthe stiff chaparral that clothes the steep hillside back of Flint Buckner'splace, tugging an empty flour-barrel with him. He placed it in thatabsolutely secure hiding-place, and in the bottom of it he set thecandlestick. Then he measured off about thirty-five feet of fuse—the

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barrel's distance from the back of the cabin. He bored a hole in the sideof the barrel—here is the large gimlet he did it with. He went on andfinished his work; and when it was done, one end of the fuse was inBuckner's cabin, and the other end, with a notch chipped in it to exposethe powder, was in the hole in the candle—timed to blow the place upat one o'clock this morning, provided the candle was lit about eighto'clock yesterday evening—which I am betting it was—and providedthere was an explosive in the cabin and connected with that end of thefuse—which I am also betting there was, though I can't prove it. Boys,the barrel is there in the chaparral, the candle's remains are in it in thetin stick; the burnt-out fuse is in the gimlet-hole, the other end is downthe hill where the late cabin stood. I saw them all an hour or two ago,when the Professor here was measuring off unimplicated vacancies andcollecting relics that hadn't anything to do with the case." He paused. The house drew a long, deep breath, shook its strainedcords and muscles free and burst into cheers. "Dang him!" said HamSandwich, "that's why he was snooping around in the chaparral, insteadof picking up points out of the P'fessor's game. Looky here—he ain't nofool, boys." "No, sir! Why, great Scott—" But Stillman was resuming: "While we were out yonder an hour or two ago, the owner of thegimlet and the trial candle took them from a place where he hadconcealed them—it was not a good place—and carried them to what heprobably thought was a better one, two hundred yards up in the pinewoods, and hid them there, covering them over with pine needles. Itwas there that I found them. The gimlet exactly fits the hole in thebarrel. And now—" The Extraordinary Man interrupted him. He said, sarcastically: "We have had a very pretty fairy tale, gentlemen—very prettyindeed. Now I would like to ask this young man a question or two." Some of the boys winced, and Ferguson said: "I'm afraid Archy's going to catch it now." The others lost their smiles and sobered down. Mr. Holmes said:

Mark Twain | 44 "Let us proceed to examine into this fairy tale in a consecutive andorderly way—by geometrical progression, so to speak—linking detailto detail in a steadily advancing and remorselessly consistent andunassailable march upon this tinsel toy fortress of error, the dreamfabric of a callow imagination. To begin with, young sir, I desire to askyou but three questions at present—at present. Did I understand you tosay it was your opinion that the supposititious candle was lighted atabout eight o'clock yesterday evening?" "Yes, sir—about eight." "Could you say exactly eight?" "Well, no, I couldn't be that exact." "Um. If a person had been passing along there just about that time,he would have been almost sure to encounter that assassin, do youthink?" "Yes, I should think so." "Thank you, that is all. For the present. I say, all for the present." "Dern him, he's laying for Archy," said Ferguson. "It's so," said Ham Sandwich. "I don't like the look of it." Stillman said, glancing at the guest, "I was along there myself athalf-past eight—no, about nine." "In-deed? This is interesting—this is very interesting. Perhaps youencountered the assassin?" "No, I encountered no one." "Ah. Then—if you will excuse the remark—I do not quite see therelevancy of the information." "It has none. At present. I say it has none—at present." He paused. Presently he resumed: "I did not encounter the assassin,but I am on his track, I am sure, for I believe he is in this room. I willask you all to pass one by one in front of me—here, where there is agood light—so that I can see your feet." A buzz of excitement swept the place, and the march began, theguest looking on with an iron attempt at gravity which was not anunqualified success. Stillman stooped, shaded his eyes with his hand,and gazed down intently at each pair of feet as it passed. Fifty men

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tramped monotonously by—with no result. Sixty. Seventy. The thingwas beginning to look absurd. The guest remarked, with suave irony: "Assassins appear to be scarce this evening." The house saw the humor if it, and refreshed itself with a cordiallaugh. Ten or twelve more candidates tramped by—no, danced by, withairy and ridiculous capers which convulsed the spectators—thensuddenly Stillman put out his hand and said: "This is the assassin!" "Fetlock Jones, by the great Sanhedrim!" roared the crowd; and atonce let fly a pyrotechnic explosion and dazzle and confusion ofstirring remarks inspired by the situation. At the height of the turmoil the guest stretched out his hand,commanding peace. The authority of a great name and a greatpersonality laid its mysterious compulsion upon the house, and itobeyed. Out of the panting calm which succeeded, the guest spoke,saying, with dignity and feeling: "This is serious. It strikes at an innocent life. Innocent beyondsuspicion! Innocent beyond peradventure! Hear me prove it; observehow simple a fact can brush out of existence this witless lie. Listen. Myfriends, that lad was never out of my sight yesterday evening at anytime!" It made a deep impression. Men turned their eyes upon Stillman withgrave inquiry in them. His face brightened, and he said: "I knew there was another one!" He stepped briskly to the table andglanced at the guest's feet, then up at his face, and said: "You were withhim! You were not fifty steps from him when he lit the candle that byand by fired the powder!" (Sensation.) "And what is more, youfurnished the matches yourself!" Plainly the guest seemed hit; it looked so to the public. He openedhis mouth to speak; the words did not come freely. "This—er—this is insanity—this—" Stillman pressed his evident advantage home. He held up a charredmatch. "Here is one of them. I found it in the barrel—and there's anotherone there."

Mark Twain | 46 The guest found his voice at once. "Yes—and put them there yourself!" It was recognized a good shot. Stillman retorted. "It is wax—a breed unknown to this camp. I am ready to be searchedfor the box. Are you?" The guest was staggered this time—the dullest eye could see it. Hefumbled with his hands; once or twice his lips moved, but the wordsdid not come. The house waited and watched, in tense suspense, thestillness adding effect to the situation. Presently Stillman said, gently: "We are waiting for your decision." There was silence again during several moments; then the guestanswered, in a low voice: "I refuse to be searched." There was no noisy demonstration, but all about the house one voiceafter another muttered: "That settles it! He's Archy's meat." What to do now? Nobody seemed to know. It was an embarrassingsituation for the moment—merely, of course, because matters had takensuch a sudden and unexpected turn that these unpractised minds werenot prepared for it, and had come to a standstill, like a stopped clock,under the shock. But after a little the machinery began to work again,tentatively, and by twos and threes the men put their heads together andprivately buzzed over this and that and the other proposition. One ofthese propositions met with much favor; it was, to confer upon theassassin a vote of thanks for removing Flint Buckner, and let him go.But the cooler heads opposed it, pointing out that addled brains in theEastern states would pronounce it a scandal, and make no end offoolish noise about it. Finally the cool heads got the upper hand, andobtained general consent to a proposition of their own; their leader thencalled the house to order and stated it—to this effect: that Fetlock Jonesbe jailed and put upon trial. The motion was carried. Apparently there was nothing further to donow, and the people were glad, for, privately, they were impatient toget out and rush to the scene of the tragedy, and see whether that barreland the other things were really there or not.

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But no—the break-up got a check. The surprises were not over yet.For a while Fetlock Jones had been silently sobbing, unnoticed in theabsorbing excitements which had been following one another sopersistently for some time; but when his arrest and trial were decreed,he broke out despairingly, and said: "No! it's no use. I don't want any jail, I don't want any trial; I've hadall the hard luck I want, and all the miseries. Hang me now, and let meout! It would all come out, anyway—there couldn't anything save me.He has told it all, just as if he'd been with me and seen it—I don't knowhow he found out; and you'll find the barrel and things, and then Iwouldn't have any chance any more. I killed him; and you'd have doneit too, if he'd treated you like a dog, and you only a boy, and weak andpoor, and not a friend to help you." "And served him damned well right!" broke in Ham Sandwich."Looky here, boys—" From the constable: "Order! Order, gentlemen!" A voice: "Did your uncle know what you was up to?" "No, he didn't." "Did he give you the matches, sure enough?" "Yes, he did; but he didn't know what I wanted them for." "When you was out on such a business as that, how did you ventureto risk having him along—and him a detective? How's that?" The boy hesitated, fumbled with his buttons in an embarrassed way,then said, shyly: "I know about detectives, on account of having them in the family;and if you don't want them to find out about a thing, it's best to havethem around when you do it." The cyclone of laughter which greeted this native discharge ofwisdom did not modify the poor little waif's embarrassment in anylarge degree.

Mark Twain | 48IVFrom a letter to Mrs. Stillman, dated merely"Tuesday"Fetlock Jones was put under lock and key in an unoccupied log cabin,and left there to await his trial. Constable Harris provided him with acouple of days' rations, instructed him to keep a good guard overhimself, and promised to look in on him as soon as further suppliesshould be due. Next morning a score of us went with Hillyer, out of friendship, andhelped him bury his late relative, the unlamented Buckner, and I actedas first assistant pall-bearer, Hillyer acting as chief. Just as we hadfinished our labors a ragged and melancholy stranger, carrying an oldhand-bag, limped by with his head down, and I caught the scent I hadchased around the globe! It was the odor of Paradise to my perishinghope! In a moment I was at his side and had laid a gentle hand upon hisshoulder. He slumped to the ground as if a stroke of lightning hadwithered him in his tracks; and as the boys came running he struggledto his knees and put up his pleading hands to me, and out of hischattering jaws he begged me to persecute him no more, and said: "You have hunted me around the world, Sherlock Holmes, yet Godis my witness I have never done any man harm!" A glance at his wild eyes showed us that he was insane. That was mywork, mother! The tidings of your death can some day repeat themisery I felt in that moment, but nothing else can ever do it. The boyslifted him up, and gathered about him, and were full of pity of him, andsaid the gentlest and touchingest things to him, and said cheer up anddon't be troubled, he was among friends now, and they would take careof him, and protect him, and hang any man that laid a hand on him.They are just like so many mothers, the rough mining-camp boys are, A Double Barrelled Detective | 49when you wake up the south side of their hearts; yes, and just like somany reckless and unreasoning children when you wake up theopposite of that muscle. They did everything they could think of tocomfort him, but nothing succeeded until Wells-Fargo Ferguson, whois a clever strategist, said: "If it's only Sherlock Holmes that's troubling you, you needn't worryany more." "Why?" asked the forlorn lunatic, eagerly. "Because he's dead again." "Dead! Dead! Oh, don't trifle with a poor wreck like me. Is he dead?On honor, now—is he telling me true, boys?" "True as you're standing there!" said Ham Sandwich, and they allbacked up the statement in a body. "They hung him in San Bernardino last week," added Ferguson,clinching the matter, "whilst he was searching around after you.Mistook him for another man. They're sorry, but they can't help itnow." "They're a-building him a monument," said Ham Sandwich, with theair of a person who had contributed to it, and knew. "James Walker" drew a deep sigh—evidently a sigh of relief—andsaid nothing; but his eyes lost something of their wildness, hiscountenance cleared visibly, and its drawn look relaxed a little. We allwent to our cabin, and the boys cooked him the best dinner the campcould furnish the materials for, and while they were about it Hillyer andI outfitted him from hat to shoe-leather with new clothes of ours, andmade a comely and presentable old gentleman of him. "Old" is the rightword, and a pity, too: old by the droop of him, and the frost upon hishair, and the marks which sorrow and distress have left upon his face;though he is only in his prime in the matter of years. While he ate, wesmoked and chatted; and when he was finishing he found his voice atlast, and of his own accord broke out with his personal history. I cannotfurnish his exact words, but I will come as near it as I can. THE "WRONG MAN'S" STORY It happened like this: I was in Denver. I had been there many years;sometimes I remember how many, sometimes I don't—but it isn't any

Mark Twain | 50matter. All of a sudden I got a notice to leave, or I would be exposedfor a horrible crime committed long before—years and years before—in the East. I knew about that crime, but I was not the criminal; it was a cousinof mine of the same name. What should I better do? My head was alldisordered by fear, and I didn't know. I was allowed very little time—only one day, I think it was. I would be ruined if I was published, andthe people would lynch me, and not believe what I said. It is always theway with lynchings: when they find out it is a mistake they are sorry,but it is too late—the same as it was with Mr. Holmes, you see. So Isaid I would sell out and get money to live on, and run away until itblew over and I could come back with my proofs. Then I escaped in thenight and went a long way off in the mountains somewhere, and liveddisguised and had a false name. I got more and more troubled and worried, and my troubles made mesee spirits and hear voices, and I could not think straight and clear onany subject, but got confused and involved and had to give it up,because my head hurt so. It got to be worse and worse; more spirits andmore voices. They were about me all the time; at first only in the night,then in the day too. They were always whispering around my bed andplotting against me, and it broke my sleep and kept me fagged out,because I got no good rest. And then came the worst. One night the whispers said, "We'll nevermanage, because we can't see him, and so can't point him out to thepeople." They sighed; then one said: "We must bring Sherlock Holmes. Hecan be here in twelve days." They all agreed, and whispered and jibbered with joy. But my heartbroke; for I had read about that man, and knew what it would be tohave him upon my track, with his superhuman penetration and tirelessenergies. The spirits went away to fetch him, and I got up at once in themiddle of the night and fled away, carrying nothing but the hand-bagthat had my money in it—thirty thousand dollars; two-thirds of it are inthe bag there yet. It was forty days before that man caught up on my

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track. I just escaped. From habit he had written his real name on atavern register, but had scratched it out and written "Dagget Barclay" inthe place of it. But fear gives you a watchful eye and keen, and I readthe true name through the scratches, and fled like a deer. He has hunted me all over this world for three years and a half—thePacific states, Australasia, India—everywhere you can think of; thenback to Mexico and up to California again, giving me hardly any rest;but that name on the registers always saved me, and what is left of meis alive yet. And I am so tired! A cruel time he has given me, yet I giveyou my honor I have never harmed him nor any man. That was the end of the story, and it stirred those boys to blood-heat,be sure of it. As for me—each word burnt a hole in me where it struck. We voted that the old man should bunk with us, and be my guest andHillyer's. I shall keep my own counsel, naturally; but as soon as he iswell rested and nourished, I shall take him to Denver and rehabilitatehis fortunes. The boys gave the old fellow the bone-smashing good-fellowshiphandshake of the mines, and then scattered away to spread the news. At dawn next morning Wells-Fargo Ferguson and Ham Sandwichcalled us softly out, and said, privately: "That news about the way that old stranger has been treated hasspread all around, and the camps are up. They are piling in fromeverywhere, and are going to lynch the P'fessor. Constable Harris is ina dead funk, and has telephoned the sheriff. Come along!" We started on a run. The others were privileged to feel as they chose,but in my heart's privacy I hoped the sheriff would arrive in time; for Ihad small desire that Sherlock Holmes should hang for my deeds, asyou can easily believe. I had heard a good deal about the sheriff, but forreassurance's sake I asked: "Can he stop a mob?" "Can he stop a mob! Can Jack Fairfax stop a mob! Well, I shouldsmile! Ex-desperado—nineteen scalps on his string. Can he! Oh, I say!" As we tore up the gulch, distant cries and shouts and yells rosefaintly on the still air, and grew steadily in strength as we raced along.Roar after roar burst out, stronger and stronger, nearer and nearer; and

Mark Twain | 52at last, when we closed up upon the multitude massed in the open areain front of the tavern, the crash of sound was deafening. Some brutalroughs from Daly's gorge had Holmes in their grip, and he was thecalmest man there; a contemptuous smile played about his lips, and ifany fear of death was in his British heart, his iron personality wasmaster of it and no sign of it was allowed to appear. "Come to a vote, men!" This from one of the Daly gang, ShadbellyHiggins. "Quick! is it hang, or shoot?" "Neither!" shouted one of his comrades. "He'll be alive again in aweek; burning's the only permanency for him." The gangs from all the outlying camps burst out in a thundercrash ofapproval, and went struggling and surging toward the prisoner, andclosed around him, shouting, "Fire! fire's the ticket!" They dragged himto the horse-post, backed him against it, chained him to it, and piledwood and pine cones around him waist-deep. Still the strong face didnot blench, and still the scornful smile played about the thin lips. "A match! fetch a match!" Shadbelly struck it, shaded it with his hand, stooped, and held itunder a pine cone. A deep silence fell upon the mob. The cone caught,a tiny flame flickered about it a moment or two. I seemed to catch thesound of distant hoofs—it grew more distinct—still more and moredistinct, more and more definite, but the absorbed crowd did not appearto notice it. The match went out. The man struck another, stooped, andagain the flame rose; this time it took hold and began to spread—hereand there men turned away their faces. The executioner stood with thecharred match in his fingers, watching his work. The hoof-beats turneda projecting crag, and now they came thundering down upon us.Almost the next moment there was a shout: "The sheriff!" And straightway he came tearing into the midst, stood his horsealmost on his hind feet, and said: "Fall back, you gutter-snipes!" He was obeyed. By all but their leader. He stood his ground, and hishand went to his revolver. The sheriff covered him promptly, and said:

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"Drop your hand, you parlor desperado. Kick the fire away. Nowunchain the stranger." The parlor desperado obeyed. Then the sheriff made a speech; sittinghis horse at martial ease, and not warming his words with any touch offire, but delivering them in a measured and deliberate way, and in atone which harmonized with their character and made themimpressively disrespectful. "You're a nice lot—now ain't you? Just about eligible to travel withthis bilk here—Shadbelly Higgins—this loud-mouthed sneak thatshoots people in the back and calls himself a desperado. If there'sanything I do particularly despise, it's a lynching mob; I've never seenone that had a man in it. It has to tally up a hundred against one beforeit can pump up pluck enough to tackle a sick tailor. It's made up ofcowards, and so is the community that breeds it; and ninety-nine timesout of a hundred the sheriff's another one." He paused—apparently toturn that last idea over in his mind and taste the juice of it—then hewent on: "The sheriff that lets a mob take a prisoner away from him isthe lowest-down coward there is. By the statistics there was a hundredand eighty-two of them drawing sneak pay in America last year. By theway it's going, pretty soon there 'll be a new disease in the doctor-books—sheriff complaint." That idea pleased him—any one could seeit. "People will say, 'Sheriff sick again?' 'Yes; got the same old thing.'And next there 'll be a new title. People won't say, 'He's running forsheriff of Rapaho County,' for instance; they'll say, 'He's running forCoward of Rapaho.' Lord, the idea of a grown-up person being afraid ofa lynch mob!" He turned an eye on the captive, and said, "Stranger, who are you,and what have you been doing?" "My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have not been doing anything." It was wonderful, the impression which the sound of that name madeon the sheriff, notwithstanding he must have come posted. He spoke upwith feeling, and said it was a blot on the county that a man whosemarvelous exploits had filled the world with their fame and theiringenuity, and whose histories of them had won every reader's heart bythe brilliancy and charm of their literary setting, should be visited under

Mark Twain | 54the Stars and Stripes by an outrage like this. He apologized in the nameof the whole nation, and made Holmes a most handsome bow, and toldConstable Harris to see him to his quarters, and hold himself personallyresponsible if he was molested again. Then he turned to the mob andsaid: "Hunt your holes, you scum!" which they did; then he said: "Followme, Shadbelly; I'll take care of your case myself. No—keep yourpopgun; whenever I see the day that I'll be afraid to have you behindme with that thing, it 'll be time for me to join last year's hundred andeighty-two"; and he rode off in a walk, Shadbelly following. When we were on our way back to our cabin, toward breakfast-time,we ran upon the news that Fetlock Jones had escaped from his lock-upin the night and is gone! Nobody is sorry. Let his uncle track him out ifhe likes; it is in his line; the camp is not interested.

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VTen days later"James Walker" is all right in body now, and his mind showsimprovement too. I start with him for Denver to-morrow morning. Next night. Brief note, mailed at a way-station. As we were starting, this morning, Hillyer whispered to me: "Keepthis news from Walker until you think it safe and not likely to disturbhis mind and check his improvement: the ancient crime he spoke ofwas really committed—and by his cousin, as he said. We buried thereal criminal the other day—the unhappiest man that has lived in acentury—Flint Buckner. His real name was Jacob Fuller!" There,mother, by help of me, an unwitting mourner, your husband and myfather is in his grave. Let him rest.

Mark Twain | 56MARK TWAINSamuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910), better known by the penname Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain ismost noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which hassince been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures ofTom Sawyer. Twain enjoyed immense public popularity. Americanauthor William Faulkner called Twain "the father of Americanliterature."

A DOUBLE BARRELLED DETECTIVE

A Double Barrelled Detective (published in 1902) is a minor novellathat begins with the marriage of a Virginia belle to a blackguard whoabuses her, ties her to a tree, has bloodhounds tear off her clothes, andabandons her. Afterward, the woman bears a son whit the trackingpowers of a bloodhound and, years later, she sends him to track downand torment his father, in revenge. The story has some light moments,including the appearance of a bumbling Sherlock Holmes.